Tolkien Etchings

Graphite and Charcoal on Rives BFK

29 x 22 inches

Glorfindel’s heroic battle with a balrog during the escape from Gondolin, in J.R.R.Tolkien’s Silmarillion, is the subject of my latest drawing. It’s the first larger scale piece I’ve finished, and I intend to have many more coming of this size in the future.Though, as is often the case in the Silmarillion, there is not much description of this event, what there is creates one of the most exciting images in all of the Middle Earth stories.

In all the other depictions of this scene that I’ve come across, the ledge that the two advisaries are on seems much too small for them to have a “duel”, as Tolkien describes; it appears to me that the would simply fall off before any fight could insue. I believe my depiction is far more plausible. The black, monstrous demon, contrasted with the beautiful, almost quintessential, blond elf warrior, and their teetering over an abyss, is what most interested me in this piece.